


Making Christmas

by Jinxgirl



Category: Runaways (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 23:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2751503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxgirl/pseuds/Jinxgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Molly decides that Christmas and Christmas spirit is sorely needed among the Runaways, she assigns each of them a task to accomplish to bring them some holiday cheer. But will they all be able to carry out their part to bring the Christmas she expects?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Christmas

Making Christmas

December 2012

"When are we going to start getting everything ready for Christmas?"

Five pairs of eyes shifted towards eleven-year-old Molly Hayes, the youngest of their group, and the only one of them whom it would even occur to ask such a question, let alone expect a definitive answer. Some of the older children present with her appeared uncomfortable, some disbelieving, some amused, but Molly appeared oblivious to all variations of their reactions. Shoving her hot pink hat back from where it was drooping low over her eyes, she gestured around them emphatically, continuing to pitch her cause.

"This dumb place isn't Christmas-y at ALL. Look, it's all dark and grey and yuck, especially since Nico won't even make it pretty-"

"I'm not wasting a spell on redecorating, Mol," the older girl interrupted. A slim, pretty Asian in a semi-Gothic black dress and lace up boots, her delicate brow knitted faintly as she spoke with deliberate patience to the younger girl. "Cleaning it's one thing…not that I see a lot of that going on either," she looked at Chase pointedly, "but just making it look like a palace or something, I'm not doing spells for things we don't need. You never know when I might need to use that same word for a spell again, and you know I can't reuse the same spell twice."

She had to admit to herself, though, that Molly had a point. The underground bunker beneath the La Brea Tar Pits of Los Angeles, which they referred to as their "lair," was hardly an inviting and cheery atmosphere to call home. It was pretty basic, essentials only, with enough space to encompass Leapfrog, the hopping, generally invisible machine which often transported them, and Old Lace, the dinosaur that Gert was bonded to and able to command and control. For the runaway mutant children of the supervillain team, the Pride, it contained what they needed to survive, but as far as aesthetics went, it would hardly be Nico's first choice.

And although Nico wouldn't have guessed, looking at Molly with her sloppy t-shirt, baggy kid's jeans, her collection of silly hats, and her tangled dirty blonde hair, that she was a girl who was worried about how things looked, it appeared that when it came to Christmas, she made an exception.

"There aren't even any WINDOWS here, even if there WAS snow and stuff we wouldn't be able to SEE it!" she declared, crossing her arms and scowling, and Gert, from where she sat near Chase a few feet away from her at their designated kitchen area, rolled her eyes.

"That tends to be what happens when you live in an underground lair," she pointed out in her usual somewhat sarcastic manner. "The point is that no one sees us…so if they don't see us, we can't see them. It's an even trade."

Gertrude Yorkes was definitely not one to care about aesthetics, with her dyed purple hair, cut in an unflattering bob, thick glasses, and her simple, shapeless clothing, designed to hide her pudgy frame. She was also not one to show much sentimentality over something like Christmas. Molly turned towards her regardless, insistent on converting her, along with everyone else, to her manner of thinking.

"Yeah, but it can still be CHRISTMAS-Y! We don't have any stockings up! We don't have wreaths or garland or lights, not even a tree! What's Christmas without a Christmas tree?" Molly demanded, spreading out her arms as though to encompass what she considered to be a rather large problem with the span of her spindly arms as she looked each of the other five in the face, one by one, seeking out someone who would realize the implications of what she was describing.

The older children avoided meeting her eyes, looking at each other instead. They were beginning to understand the implications of the situation, all right, but not in the way that Molly intended them to. Quite simply, it hadn't crossed their minds to worry about Christmas, let alone decorating for it, despite Molly's correct assertion that it was coming soon. With none of them currently holding a job, and the factors against them that most of them were too young and too publically identifiable to even pursue one, their budget was already very tight and uncertain to last much longer. There was no way to be sure they could afford even one small gift for each of the six of them, let alone the hoopla that Molly seemed to expect would continue as it always had in previous years, when they were still living with their parents. Without actually speaking to each other about it aloud, the older children had resigned themselves to the thought that celebrating Christmas was no longer within their possibilities.

It seemed, however, that whatever unspoken wavelength the others had been linked in on, Molly hadn't clued in along with them. So as they looked at each other, attempting to pinpoint one of them who would be the one to take on the role of the Christmas Killer, Nico sighed, deciding, as the leader of their group, to step forward into that role.

"Uh, Molly…about Christmas," she started, stepping closer towards her, but Molly was too intent on continuing in her campaign to pay attention.

"It's only two days away," she announced, her face lighting up as Nico turned towards her, as though she were sure now that she had a captive and appreciative audience. "I've been marking it on my calendar. Look!"

Turning, she ran to the section of their bunker that they had divided off and designated as the girls' sleeping quarters, rummaging through her section hastily. The others looked at each other again behind her turned back.

"We have a calendar?" questioned Victor, raising an eyebrow, but no one could say much more before Molly was running back into their midst, thrusting several pieces of notebook paper out for them to view triumphantly.

"See!"

She had drawn with a pencil a handmade calendar, complete with uneven lines and round handwriting taking up most of each square. And circled three times was the 25th of December, each of the 23 days before it crossed off.

Examining one of the other makeshift calendars she was presenting them with, Chase asked half jokingly, half with genuine hope, "Did you happen to mark other days too? Because if you happen to remember which day is supposed to be my anniversary, I'd owe you one."

Gert, other half of the mentioned anniversary couple, rolled her eyes. "If it's MOLLY that has to remind you it's time to get romantic, we have much deeper problems than a lack of snowmen and blinking lights around here."

"Molly, about Christmas-" Nico tried again, and again Molly cut her off, her voice getting higher and increasingly enthusiastic as Nico shared a frustrated look with Karolina over her head, only faintly gratified when Karolina grimaced in sympathy with her.

"We need to make lists!" Molly declared, already scurrying back towards her part of the girls' bedroom. "I can't believe we haven't done ANYTHING yet, we're not even giving him any time to get good stuff…"

She returned with another sheet of notebook paper, this one blank, and a pencil, thrusting it out at Gert, who happened to be standing closest. Gert stared at the offered items but didn't take them as Molly shook them impatiently.

"Everyone write down what you want for Christmas, come on…hey, what about the chimney? How's Santa Claus going to get here if we don't have a chimney for him to get into?"

There was another long, cringing pause as the older children shared yet another look, this one almost horror-stricken with their dread. This was one part of the Christmas equation that they probably should have guessed to be an issue, and one none were looking forward to addressing. When no one spoke, Nico, with a slow sigh and another glance to Karolina for support, tried yet again to actually have the conversation with Molly she had been repeatedly trying to start up.

"About Santa Claus, Molly…"

"Yeah, how's he going to come? Does he know that we're underground now? How's he getting his reindeer down here?" she asked, and this time Gert took pity on Nico and just finished the job for her, albeit much more bluntly than Nico had been attempting to work towards.

"He's not real, kiddo. Sorry."

The others all tensed, waiting for inevitable explosion. Molly might be the youngest and smallest, but she didn't call herself Princess Powerful for no reason. She was capable of extreme strength for brief periods of time, especially when she was angry- and being told she was going to be denied not only Christmas decorations, but also Santa Claus, was probably a cause for anger.

But Molly just blinked, her face registering surprise, but not fury or devastation. Yet, anyway.

"What? Really?"

"Yep," Gert confirmed with a nod, as most of the others remained wary of what they thought of as her inevitable reaction. Molly was squinting, crossing her arms and frowning with growing disappointment as she repeated her almost hopeful skepticism.

"Are you sure?"

"Yep, I'm sure," Gert said with a sigh, shoving her glasses further up her nose. "It's just another lie from the parentals…are you really that surprised, Mol?"

"Aw, man!" Molly scowled, stamping her foot, and taking no notice of the ground shaking uneasily beneath her as a result. Chase, for one, took a step back from her, but a closer inspection of her face revealed that it seemed to be irritation and disappointment more than full on rage that she was showing. "That really stinks!"

Sensitive Karolina was the one to slip an arm around her shoulders and pat her, giving her a soft, consoling smile of sympathy. A tall, gentle blonde beauty, Karolina was well-liked by all the others and was usually one of the first to give comfort or an encouraging word.

"I'm sorry, Molly," she told the younger girl. "I know you're disappointed to hear that, but you understand, that's why we can't do Christmas this year. There's no Santa Claus, and without our parents buying gifts like they always did before, we just don't have a way to get anything."

"Yes we can," Molly insisted, setting her narrow jaw and lifting her chin up towards Karolina's face in what they all recognized to be her most stubborn expression. "We can too, and we'll do it just as good as our parents did. No, better! Way better!"

The idea might sound good in theory, but it was hardly practical, and as the older children exchanged glances again, it fell to Karolina to try to carefully disillusion her.

"Molly, we don't have any money," she said reasonably. "Well, enough to make a decent Christmas, anyway. We have maybe $10 we can spare, at the very most. How would we make Christmas out of only $10?"

"Not to mention, some of us aren't exactly feeling the holiday spirit," Chase added, his longish blonde hair half covering his eyes as he gestured subtly towards both himself and Gert, who again rolled her eyes at him. Truth his words might be, but she knew as well as anyone that trying to point that out to Molly would do little to deter her.

"We don't have to have a lot of money, $10 is enough!" Molly declared, displaying, in the opinions of the others, the extreme lack of knowledge of cost that most eleven-year-olds tended to possess. "You'll see, just do the stuff I say and we'll all feel way better! Look, like this, I've got a great idea!"

And she raced out of the room and back to her living area, where they could all hear her carelessly rifling through things and possibly throwing them around as well in her effort to find whatever it was she was looking for.

"That better not be my things she's going through," Gert muttered, and Nico and Karolina too exchanged somewhat glum looks, Karolina biting her lower lip.

"This isn't going to end well, is it?" she asked softly, just as Molly gave a triumphant cry and darted back into their view, waving several scraps of what looked like ripped up paper in one hand and one of her many silly hats in the other. She placed the scraps of paper in the hat, scrambled them around with one hand, and then turned towards the others with beaming expectance, almost bouncing on her toes with her eagerness.

"This is what you're in charge of, whatever you draw out. Come on, take some! I'm doing the presents, even the one for me 'cause I've already got a super awesome idea that we totally need anyway. But the rest of you, you pick!"

When no one made a mad dash to obey, Molly's grin slipped, and she shook her hat impatiently at them, huffing. "Come ON, just PICK on already!"

And when Molly got like that, you just couldn't deny her. It was just embarrassing to get thrown across the room or stomped into the ground by an eleven-year-old girl. It was as much to preserve personal dignity as to humor the little girl that one by one, each of them chose a paper from the hat.

The only question that remained, once they selected their assigned fate, or "doom" as Chase termed it, was how, exactly, they were going to manage to get the tasks done at all, let alone to Molly's satisfaction?

Chapter 2: Chapter 2  
"Sure, give the fat girl the food assignment," Gert muttered to herself from the area of the lair that they had cornered off as their "kitchen," her thick eyebrows drawn close to her nose as she scowled down at the items spread out before her on her paper plates. "What I do for that kid, I swear…"

She had managed, with the $2 Molly had delegated for her to be able to spend, to purchase a single package of pre-baked sugar cookies, but because they had no oven, the only way to bake them was in their old, often faulty microwave. The resulting concoctions were limp and doughy, the shapes Gert had tried to force them into with her bare hands and a lack of cookie cutters resembling misshapen triangles and sticks rather than gingerbread men and Christmas trees. There were no sprinkles or icing, and the only thing she could think of to decorate them with was peanut butter for frosting and Fruity Pebbles flakes for sprinkles, buttons, and eyes. Yes, these cookies were bizarre, and she suspected they wouldn't taste all that great either.

"These are going to suck," she proclaimed under her breath, shaking her head in disgust, even as Chase, behind her, leans over to inspect her handiwork before she can shoo him away.

"Peanut butter? That's a cool idea, I never would have thought of that! Are they peanut butter cookies? They kind of look weird…but everything tastes the same when it's mixed up in your stomach, right?"

"Hands off!" Gert warns, but Chase has already snatched one up, eyes widening as he recognizes the Fruity Pebbles.

"Cereal and cookies? It's almost like Cookie Crisp, only way weirder…and more colorful. These aren't really sticking together, Gert, are you sure you did these right?"

"Yes, Chase, I did them exactly right, exactly the way you're supposed to when you have no oven, the cheapest brand in existence, and the kind of food people give the homeless to decorate with. And when we ourselves are basically one step above being homeless anyway. Yes, I followed the instructions perfectly that are provided for people under THOSE circumstances," Gert retorted with heavy sarcasm, snatching at his hand as Chase reached for another. "And if you don't keep your man hands off, I'm giving YOU the ones that have the most salmonella in them."

"Well, they don't taste bad, anyway…much," Chase shrugged, licking peanut butter off his fingers, and Gert exhaled, rolling her eyes to a ceiling.

"This from the man who once ate a bagel that had rolled across the room like a runaway tire. Yeah, these will be a scrumptious treat…"

"We're the only guys here, and somehow WE end up with the decorating task?! What are the chances?!" Chase sputtered, disgruntled, as he and Victor sat on the floor, surrounded by all paper, scissors, colored pencils, and anything resembling potential arts and crafts materials that Molly had so helpfully scrounged up for them. He shook his head, eyes half closed as if not even wanting to look at the items spread before him.

"Well, there are six of us, five of us after Molly assigned herself the task of gift giving," Victor said reasonably. "So a one out of five chance for each of us to get this task. Then for both of us to get it, that would be one fifth times one fifth, which is one out of twenty-five chance we would both be assigned this rather than any other combination of the five of us."

"Karma hates us," Chase decided, shaking his head again and sighing loudly.

"We've already established that," called Gert dryly from where she continued to struggle with her cookies several feet away, having already threatened to call Old Lace to help her keep Chase back if he wandered in her direction one more time this afternoon. "We're minors with super powers that most of us aren't entirely in control of, whose parents are evil supervillains hunting us down like dogs, with no money, no certainty of a future, and the strong likelihood of grave injury and death sooner rather than later. That's a pretty good indicator that karma is not our friend."

Giving up on the cookies for the moment, she made her way over to the boys slowly, then smirked as she leaned against the closest wall to them, almost looming over their shoulders as she idly watched their struggles to make snowflakes and paper chains, stars and candy canes, out of the scraps around them. The snowflakes resembled jagged blobs, the paper chains were coming apart, the starts often were missing points or had one too many, and the candy canes were of various sizes.

She said nothing, just allowed her mouth to curve upward even more ironically as her eyes drifted over each labored attempt at creating holiday décor, until Chase finally looked up, irritated.

"You could help, you know."

"No, no, that was your assigned task, karma, remember?" she said dryly, crossing her arms and leaning back even more securely against the wall. Wisely, Victor didn't say anything, choosing to continue to concentrate on trying to cut a more snowflake-like snowflake, but Chase, being Chase, had to push the boundaries just a little more.

"Well, you're the girl, so you should be the one to-"

"Excuse me? I'm the GIRL?" Gert's eyebrows rose beneath her bangs, and she uncrossed her arms, standing up straight now as she purposefully stared down at her boyfriend's slouched form. " And that, what, automatically means I have greater artistic ability?"

"It does when it comes to girly decorating stuff," Chase muttered, which provoked Victor's somewhat amused, somewhat nervous chuckle.

"Go ahead, Chase, step in it some more," he encouraged under his breath, as Gert continued to stare at him, shaking her head slowly.

"I would love to see you say that around Karolina and Nico…too bad it's not THEM with the super strength."

Even as she spoke Chase made a noise that seemed to be part grunt, part growl, as he held up a torn attempt to make a candy cane, shaking it with frustration. "Agggh, tore it AGAIN! Are you SURE we don't have any tape around here?"

"Yep, I should have just done a spell," Nico repeated in a loud whisper as she repeatedly turned her head from side to side, wanting to be sure that there was nothing approaching her that she would be unaware of from any direction.

In the darkness of the early evening, the forest seemed vast and entirely too unfamiliar, even threatening. Every slight rustle of leaves or faint snapping of a twig made her stiffen and move closer to Karolina, who had agreed to accompany her despite the fact that she had not only not selected this particular task of Molly's from the hat, she had also not yet finished her own task. It was this loyalty of Karolina's, or perhaps just this show of pity, that was one of the many reasons that Karolina was her best friend.

"You know that wouldn't be a good idea, Nico," Karolina reminded her as she shone her flashlight back and forth repeatedly to light the path before them, occasionally drifting it up towards the trees as well. "You already told Molly you wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, well, that was before we went traipsing through another witch's lair, the one who goes by Blair and likes to video her victims," Nico mumbled, and she actually hooked her arm through Karolina's, as close to her now as she could get, even as she clutched the ax in her other hand closer against her side. "Good thing I have this…we might need it for killing something other than trees…at the very least I should have brought another flashlight…"

She shivered then, and Karolina felt her own skin tingle in reaction. She cleared her throat, then swallowed, trying to distract herself from the warmth of Nico so near her…she knew very well that her friend didn't feel THAT way, that had been made painfully obvious to her once before, and it was moments like this, when Nico seemed to have entirely forgotten the effect she could have on her, that Karolina had to work simply to pretend that everything was still perfectly normal.

"It's not like I'm ever going to use a spell where I need a Christmas tree again," Nico was saying, "why would I? Seriously, should have used a spell…"

"But you never know how the spells will turn out, Nico," Karolina reminded her. "It could have landed on top of one of us and crushed us, or shot up straight from the floor and through the ceiling. It could have zoomed out of someone else's house and into ours-"

"That wouldn't be so bad," Nico smiled slightly, envisioning an astonished family's expression as their Christmas tree took off full speed, and Karolina smiled too, but finished her gentle reminder.

"You know as well as I do, it wouldn't be the best idea…we can do this. We just have to find one small enough for us to carry."

"And easy enough to cut down…yeah, I guess you're right," Nico sighed, her footsteps slowing almost to a trudge. "Two girls in the woods at night with an ax is already suspicious enough, it's like we're in a bad horror movie…but then, that's kind of our life, isn't it?"

She shivered again, burrowing even more closely against Karolina's side as she complained, "It's really cold out tonight!"

"Well, it's December…and you're in a mini skirt," Karolina pointed out, her eyes shifting to regard the other girl's bare legs with some amusement that quickly became embarrassment as she flushed, then immediately looked away. There was an uncomfortable pause for a few moments as Nico took a moment to clue in on what was making her react in such a way, and she pulled apart from her just a little, also stricken with awkwardness before she tried to play off the sudden strangeness between them.

"Well, it had red trim, and that's festive, so…how about this one?" she gave up trying to bluff her way through the moment, pointing at the first tree she saw, and Karolina stopped to regard it, shining the light up its length and down to its trunk critically.

"Sure," she said, glad that Karolina could not see her still-flushed face in the dimness of the night, and she shone the light at the base of the trunk, stepping well out of the way and gesturing for Nico to wield the ax. "Here Nico, you try it."

Nico looked to make sure she was out of range, and then held the ax almost like a baseball bat, swinging it at the base with all her strength and a loud grunt for emphasis. The ax briefly embedded itself in the trunk, and when Nico pulled it back with another grunt, then bent to inspect the damage made, she covered her eyes with her free hand, sighing heavily.

"One dent. One tiny, almost nonexistent dent…this is gonna be a long night, K…"

By the time Nico and Karolina had managed to lug the tree home, it was missing half its needles, and Karolina and Nico were panting and considerably scratched from the rough bark and pine needles, but Nico's task was accomplished. From what Karolina had heard, everyone's had been or had gotten off to a start, at any rate, even Molly, for she had apparently refused to allow anyone near the girl's sleeping area all day. This meant that only she had her task left to contend with, and she still was at a loss as to how, exactly, she would accomplish it.

The others, when she told them, thought that her task was the easiest one, the one requiring little effort, but then, the others would. Chase had a guitar, Victor, being a cyborg, could probably manipulate anything to play music that he wanted to, Nico was creative enough to come up with anything or else could simply do a spell, and Gert? Gert would be satisfied with passing around pots, pans, and spoons and telling them to bang on them. But what was Karolina supposed to do to make music, specifically Christmas music?

She had already helped Nico with the tree, so there was no trading there. Gert too had already accomplished her task, and so that left Chase and Victor, still struggling to produce decorations to Molly's satisfaction. But when she broached the subject of a trade, though Chase leapt up eagerly, more than willing to do so, Victor tilted his head, regarding Karolina thoughtfully.

"You have a pretty good voice though, don't you, Karolina?"

Karolina blushed, looking down, and her toes turned inward towards each other as Victor answered for her. "I've heard you humming to yourself before…you do have a good voice. Why don't you just sing yourself for Molly?"

Chase appeared interested at this proposition, or else was just looking for a good excuse to abandon his efforts at decoration-creation, for he looked up at Karolina expectantly, waiting for her response. Karolina knew she was flushing even more brilliantly than before as she shook her head.

"No…not in front of everyone, with everyone looking at me and listening…I can't do that. I'd be too nervous. My voice would crack and I'd forget all the words…."

"So record yourself," Victor shrugged. "Then you can just play it back at the right time."

"How would I do that?" Karolina blinked, her heart already beating faster, for she suspected that Victor had a plan. He smiled back at her, not answering, and instead walked away, in the direction of the area where he and Chase slept.

"Hey, if you're off decoration duty, I am too, right?" Chase called hopefully, but Victor was back within a minute or two with a small handheld voice recorder in his palm. He held it out to the apprehensive Karolina, still smiling at her in a friendly, yet slightly challenging fashion.

"There's no batteries, but I can fix that if I just hold it for a minute. I figured one of these might come in handy in the future."

Karolina didn't ask him how, where, or when he had managed to acquire it, nor how he would get it to work without batteries. His ability to manipulate technology and metal explained that much. She continued to look on with her lips thinning with her growing nerves, wondering just how she was going to manage to sing into that thing long enough to have it able to be heard later, but soft enough that no one would know or hear what she was doing. And would she really be brave enough to play it at top volume later on? Could she stand to listen to herself without running cringing from the room?

Her thank you to Victor was more than a little uncertain.

Chapter 3: Chapter 3  
Christmas Eve was quiet, almost furtive, as those working on their tasks did what they could to conceal them from the others. It had been decided that Molly, who most wanted to be surprised, would be the one to prepare for the following morning first. She had set out her gifts, which all looked suspiciously the same shape and size and were wrapped in wads of newspaper, in a corner of the room, then, hands on hips, began to direct the others as to what exactly they could do about them.

"No touching! Don't pick them up or shake them either! Don't even look at them, okay? Just…do your stuff…and then go to bed, okay?"

She had scrambled off to her own bed considerably faster and with more enthusiasm than she did any other night of the year, and pulled her covers over her head for good measure, not wanting to risk seeing anything she didn't want to. And the others had gotten to work.

Karolina and Nico had earlier struggled to figure out exactly how it was they would not only drag this tree into the lair, but also hide it from Molly until Christmas morning.

"I don't know why we have to HIDE it, she's the one that told us to go get it," Nico had griped, but in the end it was she who had decided to cover it with blankets where it stretched across half the kitchen and living room area until they could put it upright. Though Chase and Victor had offered to help, she and Karolina had set it upright alone, Nico rolling her eyes at the offer.

"We managed to find it, cut it down, lug it home, and hide it from Little Miss Eagle Eyes, and you're gonna step in at the last second and take some credit? No thanks."

Gert's cookies had cooled long ago, and she set them out on a tray nearby, slapping Chase's hand away when he attempted to snake one towards his mouth. And as Karolina set the recording on the floor reluctantly, together they worked on the tree, decking it out with somewhat unconventional paperchains, snowflakes, snowmen, and candy canes. The lair was not what one would call a sight of beauty, but as they stepped back, critiquing their efforts, all of them, even Gert, felt that they had made an improvement…that maybe, just maybe, they had been worth it, if only to make Molly happy.

Happy might have been a mild phrase for Molly's reaction. It seemed to the others that it barely the crack of dawn of Christmas morning before Molly was shooting out of bed and shaking them all awake, crying out excitedly, "It's Christmas! Merry Christmas!"

The others had been slow to react to this, nestling further into their blankets, Gert going so far as to mutter what vaguely sounded like a threat of physical harm, but Molly, being invulnerable to anything the older girl could have done to her even if she had been serious, had ignored her, simply shaking her again and even more enthusiastically.

"Christmas! Get up and come open your presents!"

She was not taking no for an answer, and even in their sleepiness, her excitement was strangely contagious. Without much further prodding they had poured themselves out of their makeshift beds, shuffling slump-shouldered, yawning, and bleary-eyed in the direction she was indicating. Nico leaned into Karolina, arm around her waist and head on her shoulder as she rubbed at her eyes, and though Karolina jumped, her heart beating faster, and quickly became considerably more awake than the other four, she did tentatively curl her arm around Nico as well, letting her lean on her as they followed Molly. Chase, seeing Gert emerge, made his way over to her, one arm extended, but the purple-haired girl scowled.

"Touch me before six am and lose a hand," she warned, but then relented, slipping a hand into his. "Merry Christmas."

Molly, meanwhile, was almost dancing in circles around the others, her face aglow, messy hair flying about as she spun around, arms flying out to indicate everything she was seeing. She was energetic as a rule, but watching her then, her smile lighting up her eyes, the others smiled too, even Gert.

"This is AWESOME!" she enthused, "It's really CHRISTMAS!"

And it was. The tree stood tall and strong, and if its decorations were not of the best quality, their quantity made up for it. The cookies laid out for them might not have been as good as they could have been, but they were sweet, and that was good enough. And with a raised eyebrow from Victor, Karolina had gently pulled out from under Nico's arm to switch on the recording she had made of herself. Hearing her own soft voice singing "Silent Night" was not embarrassing, as she had feared, even as her cheeks flushed in anticipation, but rather strangely fitting and appropriate. Its tone and mood seemed to go with the present moment more perfectly than any silence, and as the others began to realize that it was her own voice they were hearing, their smiles softened, and they stood still, as though savoring, even reflecting on the moment. Nico slipped an arm around Karolina again, whispering in her ear, "Beautiful," and Karolina blushed, letting herself think, even for half a second, that her friend was referring to her rather than to her voice.

That unusual peacefulness was exactly what most of them had never felt was quite present most Christmas mornings, but this Christmas was unlike any others.

Of course, realism indicated that this quiet peace among them could not last long without being broken, and it could not have been longer than thirty to forty seconds before Molly darted towards her stash of presents, beginning to grab them up and toss them to each of their respective owners.

"Open them up, open them up!" she fairly demanded, already tearing into her own, though she knew perfectly well what her package held, having provided it herself. And the others had to admit that they were indeed curious as they obeyed.

When all newspaper wrapping had been cast aside, the other five children for several seconds could just stare down at Molly's gift to them, attempting to process it. Each of them was holding a formerly plain, solid-colored t-shirt, one from their own wardrobe, but Molly, apparently, had decided on a better use for them all. Each plain t-shirt had been "decorated" by Sharpie markers, individualized for each person. On the back of the shirt in slightly uneven capital letters across the shoulders was the word "RUNAWAYS", and beneath that, the individualized nickname of whichever person the shirt belonged to. "Talkback" for Chase, "Arsenic" for Gert, "Sister Grimm" for Nico, "Lucy in the sky" for Karolina, "Victron" for Victor, and of course, "Princess Powerful" for Molly herself. On the front of the shirt was Molly's drawn renditions of whatever she thought most appropriate to represent that person- a robot for Chase, a rainbow for Karolina, what was apparently supposed to be a dragon for Gert, a witch for Nico, a smiley face for Chase, and a princess, complete with a crown and wand, for Molly.

As the others looked down at their shirts, then up at Molly, as though seeking an explanation, Molly beamed, clearly pleased with herself.

"It's our costumes!" she announced. "For us, the Runaways! You guys are boring and wouldn't make any, so I did it for you. Look, it's got our names and pictures for us too…I didn't know what to put for you, Chase, so I just put a smiley face. Try them on, guys!"

And without further ado she slipped her own on over her t-shirt, grinning down at herself with satisfaction.

Ordinarily, Nico would never have let anyone even touch her clothes, let alone permanently alter one of her shirts, and specifically, she would never be caught dead wearing a caricature of a witch, something she had considered in bad taste even before she herself became one. Ordinarily, Gert would never have been caught dead wearing a bad rendition of a dragon, scrawled by an 11-year-old hand…but even they, examining Molly's dedication to them, couldn't help but smile, at least for this morning, and then, even to laugh. And they, along with everyone else, slipped on the t-shirts, then turned around to compare with each other, everyone laughing at and pointing out everyone else.

"No shirt for Old Lace, Mols?" Chase asked her, and she had an explanation ready.

"She didn't already have one and I couldn't buy one that big. But maybe I can make her a hat!"

"I think she's content as it is," Gert said dryly, but she was smiling as she looked at Chase's shirt pointedly. "I get the dragon…and you get a smiley? That speaks volumes."

"Maybe you should have got Nico's shirt," he retorted, as Gert replies calmly.

"Well if I'm a witch, you could get to be my toad."

Karolina, meanwhile, was looking down at the rainbow on her shirt and tracing it absently, thinking with some amusement, some discomfort, how very ironic its presence was. Nevertheless she smiled, because it was appropriate because of her colorful, sparkling light that her powers were able to allow her to give off as much as for other reasons. Victor too was shaking his head and smiling at his goofy robot shirt, and Molly, observing them all, was grinning from ear to ear.

"See, this is much better than Christmas with our parents, isn't it?" she asked.

"Totally," Chase agreed, sliding a friendly arm around Gert, and she allowed him to, even leaning slightly against him as well as she too nodded.

"Yes…not that it would have taken a lot in retrospect."

"It really is, Mol," Karolina said warmly, and Victor and Nico nodded as well, their faces open and relaxed. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, everyone's words were sincere. There were no fancy expensive gifts, no large feasts, but as cheesy as it sounded, as clichéd as it probably was, they didn't need any of it.

As though echoing the sentiment, Molly asked of the others collectively, "We don't even need our parents or any of the dumb things they would have done with us. We've got each other, right? We're all family now, so that's what matters."

And no one disagreed. Sitting close to each other, with Chase and Gert, Karolina and Nico, then Victor and Molly in pairs on the floor in front of the Christmas tree Nico and Karolina had labored to bring, newspaper strewn around them, silly t-shirts of various colors donned by all, each of them, whether they indicated it aloud or not, fully felt this to be true.

The end


End file.
